"Military families’ experiences are an important part of our national conversation about America’s responsibilities toward those who serve the country, and Alison Buckholtz’s Standing By makes an original, significant, and lasting contribution to this discussion. By pulling back the curtain on her family’s trials and tribulations during a time of war, readers gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of military families and how to support those who serve. Standing By is required reading for our time." --U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, co-founder, Congressional Military Family Caucus

"With grace and candor, Alison Buckholtz lays bare her own life, her own marriage, to tell the story of military wives across the country. Buckholtz is a gifted writer, and so her book is never a lecture, but rather a gentle tutorial on the challenges and heartbreak that fuel the collective narrative of women who are too often invisible. Read this book, and you will want to thank every military wife you are lucky enough to meet. They, too, serve our country." -- Connie Schultz, syndicated columnist and author

"Alison Buckholtz brought the war home for me. As a military wife, she so beautifully evokes what it’s like to wait and wait and worry, to go on with your life even while your life is in a holding pattern. She makes the details count like the best of novelists–from a flag on a neighbor’s porch to a drawing her child brought home. She is warm without being overly sentimental and firm in her opinions without being strident. I will always want Alison’s beautiful voice in my ear reminding me what is actually being sacrificed in such moments." --Hanna Rosin, contributing editor, The Atlantic

"Alison Buckholtz’s memoir is a universal story of friendship, family, and endurance that reveals the history of the American military spouse from Revolutionary War camp followers to her own experience as a Navy wife in the post-9/11 world. Standing By is sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always a beautiful, honest book about the toil and triumph of modern military life." --Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone and The Confusion of Languages

"Alison Buckholtz's writing about military life offers poignant insights into the experience of a military family at home--a wonderful way for readers to understand the experience of those who serve, in all its nuance. I strongly recommend this book!" -- Kathy Roth-Douquet, author of AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service and How It Hurts Our Country and Co-founder and CEO, Blue Star Families

"As a child of NAS Whidbey and the son of a Navy Mom, I never fully understood my mother's burden until I read Alison Buckholtz's Standing By. A note-perfect account of what passes for normal in a military family. Alison captures the loneliness, camaraderie, and bravery of those left behind. I can't recommend it enough." --Stephen Rodrick, author of The Magical Stranger: A Son's Journey Into His Father's Life

“Everything about this book is unexpected. Although based on Alison Buckholtz’s experiences as a military spouse, which is a life of quiet sacrifices and countless hardships, Standing By is a hysterically funny, deeply moving, and ultimately breathtaking book. Any husband or wife will draw inspiration and wisdom from this extraordinary story.” --Andrew Carroll, New York Times-bestselling author of War Letters and Behind the Lines

“In Alison Buckholtz’s beautifully written book Standing By, she shows us how love of country, love of family–and commitment to both–can sustain military families separated by war.” –Tanya Biank, author of Army Wives (basis for the Lifetime television series)

“As a father who waited up at night for those rare treasured calls from my Marine son at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, I not only understand this book but empathize so deeply as to have almost lived every story herein. The author does full justice to the story of those who wait, suffer, and long for the return of the loved one in uniform.” –Frank Schaeffer, author of Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps

"Alison Buckholtz has penned the reality of military marriage... in Standing By Buckholtz gives this perennial tale a fresh perspective and a healthy dose of historical grounding, highlighting the significant role of military spouses throughout America's history, beginning with Martha Washington and the camp-followers of the Revolutionary War. Buckholtz also provides us with historical depth and insight into Navy traditions and practices, making the book educational for even the most seasoned military spouse. Standing By is both honest and compelling reading. With her civilian roots and candidly naive perspective of military life, Buckholtz evolves into an admittedly proud Navy wife on its pages. Her book will make veteran military spouses nod their heads in agreement and will mesmerize many civilian readers who want to learn more about the sacrifices, upheavals, and surprising pleasures in the daily life of the naval aviator's spouse." --Proceedings Magazine, U.S. Naval Institute

“You could read [Standing By] as a civilian and gain an honest, entertaining understanding into what military families do; or you could read it as a military spouse and feel the comfort that comes from a shared burden.” –Military Spouse Book Review

“A vivid and sensitive account of the sacrifices made by families of military personnel in wartime.” --Library Journal

“By recording her journey, Standing By expands ours as well. Buckholtz serves as an intermediary for the reader, guiding us through the intricacies of Navy family life as she is forced to learn them herself. Buckholtz laments the culture gap between the civilian population and the military and the American layman’s narrow understanding of the institution that defends his way of life. Her memoir—insightful and self-aware…helps close that gap.” – Hadassah Magazine

“Remarkable…Buckholtz vividly and frankly writes about the poignant feelings of loneliness and love experienced by a military wife as she struggles to cope with her children and her own sense of the void in her life….Her effective rendition of what it means to be a military wife offers special lessons for the general population who have not known compulsory military service for more than 35 years. Most people know very little about the pains and the plight of our soldiers, sailors, aviators, and their families. This book competently and capably fills that void. It deserves to be widely read.” —The Jewish Chronicle